Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22 (17 page)

"Well, I pitched in about the tomahawk. Maybe I spoke sharper than I needed to, and I was sorry afterwards; both those girls were on edge and ready to scream. They told me what I reckon you already know: they hadn't heard anything about a tomahawk until late in the afternoon, after the baseball-do when Henry himself nearly got clobbered. Yancey Beale said it was Rip Hillboro who'd drawn their attention to the tomahawk. I said, 'Where is he?' And Yancey said, T don't know; Mr. Maynard made us promise to stay away from each other; I think Rip went upstairs.'

"Just as I was on my way to have a word with that smart young Yankee, Mark Sheldon drove his car up to the front door.
He
can't have any connection with this, so I didn't stop to question him. On the second floor, where there's a big corridor through the breadth of the house past the front bedrooms, Mrs. Huret—Mrs. Gilbert Huret —was standing outside a closed door down at the north end. That lady always embarrasses me, sort of, though I couldn't tell you why. So I didn't stop there either. I asked her if she'd seen Mr. Hillboro, and she said he was on the top floor. "Then .

For a moment Captain Ashcroft brooded on something. Mosquitoes now sang round all three who stood on the grass beside the terrace; all three slapped briskly. Captain Ashcroft raised his head.

"On the top floor," he continued, still brooding, "the door of Henry's study was wide open. There was nobody in it, but I could hear pool-balls click from the next room on the left.

"Young Hillboro was there, practising shots on the pool-table. Funny thing, you know. It had just started to get dark a little. As I stuck my head inside the door, he reached up and turned on the lights over the table. Then he looked at me in that way of his. 'Well, well,' he says, 'if it's not the Procurator of Judea! Been winning any chariot races today, Ben-Hur?'

"Is it mind-reading, like what they try to do in North Carolina? He wasn't at the Francis Marion Hotel today; he wasn't within miles of us when Miss Bruce made that slip o' the tongue. If it goes on this way they'll be callin' me a Jewish so-and-so, me that's been a good Episcopalian since the day I was born! Still, have I made the story clear so far?"

"Your recital," Dr. Fell proclaimed, "is both lucid and admirable. Be not troubled, I beg, by tasteless remarks about your supposed ancestry."

"Oh, I took him down a peg or two; he's not as tough as he looks. It'll be different, that's all, if anybody gets funny after a murder's been committed. He said, pretty reasonably, he hadn't mentioned the tomahawk until late afternoon because he couldn't be sure it was important. And there's other things I hadn't heard about, like the man on the beach with a sack over his shoulder.

"That's almost all, though I don't much like the part that comes next. Down I went to the ground floor. Nobody in the library, and Dr. Sheldon's car gone: the whole house might 'a' been deserted. It wasn't dark, but it was getting dark. I went out the front door. There was Henry in his gray suit, on the ground between the table and the chair. I hurried to him, and took care not to step in his tracks. He was as dead as a mackerel, but only just dead if I'm any judge.

"I was bending over him when something made me look up and around. There on the porch stood Madge Maynard, with her mouth open and her eyes big enough to drown in.

"She ran a-flyin' towards Henry, but stopped on the grass here as if her legs wouldn't support her much farther. I said, 'It's bad news, girl; I'm afraid he's a goner.' For a second she just stood there. Then she let out a screech they could have heard across at the Battery, and keeled over in a dead faint."

Captain Ashcroft switched off the flashlight.

"Afterwards, what with all the fuss and uproar and running around—carry her in the house, get her up to her room, phone the doctor to see how bad it is—what with all that
...
Dr. Fell!"

"Eh?"

"Dr. Fell," roared the harassed detective, "have you heard one word I've said?" "Frankly . . ."

"You've been in a kind of a trance, with your eyes out across the water as if you could see something we couldn't see. It's only the lights of Charleston over there; they won't help us!"

"You are quite right, sir; they won't. I was wool-gathering again, I fear. You see—"

But Captain Ashcroft had embarked on a grievance.

"What with all that," he said, "I haven't had a chance at one single witness. Where were they? What were they up to? I've got to get at 'em soon, unless I want worse trouble than we're already in. —Mr. Grantham!"

"Yes?"

"Will you hop in the house and round up the witnesses? Ask 'em to wait in the library. This murderer took one hell of a risk, unless he's invisible as well as lighter than air.
Somebody
must have seen
something.
I'll be there in a minute or two, as soon as I've had a little private confab with Dr. Fell. Will you do that, young fellow?"

"Yes, of course."

Alan strode off under the high, incurious moon, not without a feeling that something besides mosquitoes might be on his track.

The front door still stood wide open. Through the screen door soft light glowed out from the crystal chandelier of the main hall. In that white and glistening cavern, where the grandfather clock ticked and the portrait of the first Richard looked down, all baseball equipment had been removed from the table, and the silver tray put back.

Camilla Bruce, her hand on the banister-rail, was just descending the black-and-white staircase at the rear. "Hello, Camilla." "Hello, Alan."

She completed the descent and moved towards him. Even at that inappropriate time he noted the clear complexion, the dark-blue eyes and pink mouth, the supple figure set off by a clinging dress. But she was also pale and distraught; his heart smote him.

"Camilla, Dr. Sheldon gave us your message, or at least
a
message. He said you wanted to see Dr. Fell, and see me too."

"Did I say I wanted to see you? Yes, I believe I did." She extended both hands, and he grasped them. For a moment they stood and looked at each other. "Alan, this is a
ghastly
business! Poor Madge!" "How is she?"

"Sleeping. She won't know anything until tomorrow morning; then she'll remember all over again. And we haven't a hope of getting away at th
e weekend, any of us! Not that I
should go in any case, with Madge feeling as she does. But we'll stay and face the music whether we like it or not. Captain Ashcroft's made it very clear, even if he hasn't said much; he seemed quite exercised about it"

"That's not the only thing he's exercised about Apart from a murder under completely impossible circumstances, which has brought him to the verge of raving lunacy, he doesn't much like these Old Testament names."

"It's my fault, I know!"

"How could you help it? Your tongue slipped and you called him Jehoshaphat But—"

"The restaurant wasn't the only time. You and Dr. Fell left here at not much past six o'clock, just before poor Mr. Maynard went out to the terrace. Madge and Yancey and Rip and I were in the library. You hadn't been gone ten minutes when another car drove up. I looked out of the-window and said, 'Be on your best behavior, everybody; here comes Jehoshaphat Ashcroft!' Rip said, 'I'm getting out of here, good people; I ought to have gone long ago.' And he went.

"Captain Ashcroft talked to George out in the hall. Then he marched in here and carried on about the tomahawk without telling us how he knew the tomahawk was gone. After about twenty minutes he left to tackle Rip upstairs. Yancey said, 'I'
m gettin' out too; old Melchize
dek's on the warpath for fair.' Yancey went out through the weapons-room into the back garden just as Dr. Sheldon arrived and hung over Madge as solicitously as though he were trying to qualify for her fan club. He said he was going back to Charleston, and had some errands on the way. I asked him, I practically begged him, to get you and Dr. Fell. And I think—I'm not sure, but I think —I must have called Captain Ashcroft 'Jehoshaphat'
again."

"Camilla, stop worrying about it! Which reminds me. Our biblical friend told me to 'round up' the witnesses and put 'em in the library. Where is everybody, by the way?"

"They know! They know there's to be an inquisition, that is. They're coming (all except Madge, of course), and they'll be here at any minute! Meanwhile, about the other thing
..."

Reluctantly he had released her hands.

"As I say, Camilla, forget the other thing. It doesn't matter a hoot what you called Captain Ashcroft two or three hours ago, so long as we can restrain people's sense of humor now that there's been real trouble. The next one who addresses him as Herod Antipas or Moon of Israel is going to get it in the neck. Barring that, what difference does it make? It was only a slip of the tongue to begin with . . ."

"But it wasn't a slip of the tongue," cried Camilla, "even to begin with! His name is Josephus Daniels Ashcroft. I knew that perfectly well, just as I know you were at Cambridge and not at Oxford. He annoyed me, that's all. I—I get cross with people; I say things I had no intention of saying, or at least that I'd give years off my life to take back! You must think I'm a pretty dreadful person, don't you?"

"No, Camilla, that's not my view at all. But suppose you and I open the ball by adjourning to the library now. Then, when the Tetrarch of Galilee arrives for his investigation . . ."

"Alan, don't
you
start!"

"All right; sorry."

He led her to the library door, down four steps into that gray room of books with fine bindings, where the light of many lamps shone on furniture upholstered in yellow satin. As though by instinct Camilla went to the grand piano and sat down on its bench.

"Do you know," she said, "that nobody's
had a bite to eat all evening? I
don't want anything, and neither does anybody else. The cook prepared a dinner, but—"

"If I drove you as far as the main road, you could at least get sandwiches and coffee. There was a lunch-wagon of sorts beside the gas-station."

"I meant it, Alan!" she assured him earnestly, putting her hand on his arm. "I simply
couldn't
eat a thing; after what's happened, it would choke me. Was there anything else on your mind?"

"Well, yes. If you feel up to it, you might tell me what happened just before the murder was discovered. It's the first thing the Tet—it's the first thing Captain Ashcroft will ask."

"I'll try. What did you want to know, exactly?"

"Captain Ashcroft went up to the top floor to see Rip Hillboro, and did see him. Dr. Sheldon arrived, stayed for a short while, and left. Did you and Madge remain here?"

"Yes, for a time."

"What about the others, Bob Crandall and Mrs. Huret?"

"Mr. Crandall had gone upstairs before Captain Ashcroft got here; Valerie followed him. I rather gather they weren't
exactly
together afterwards; but there's been too much rumpus to learn what anybody was doing. Madge was horribly restless. Finally she said she was going up to her room; she went out, and
I
heard her go upstairs.
I
stayed here."

"All the time, Camilla?"

"Yes, all the time! Madge seemed to want to be alone; I didn't know
what
to do. I prowled and prowled. I sat down here at the piano, but that didn't seem to be right, somehow. I opened one of those wire bookcase-doors, and took down a book at random. It was
The Prophet Isaiah and His Message;
I put it back again. Just to occupy myself—I can't tell you why, really!—I went over there."

Rather shakily Camilla gestured towards the closed door of the weapons-room.

"When Yancey went out to the back garden through that room, he must have opened and closed the French window without disturbing the curtains; they were still closed and in place, and the room was dark. I was just inside, reaching for the light-switch to the left of the door, when I heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs out in the hall.

"It was a distinctive tread; it couldn't have been anybody but Captain Ashcroft. I thought, 'Dear God, more questions!' So I didn't turn on the light; I just stood there. And it
was
Captain Ashcroft. He looked into the library, but didn't see anybody and must have decided we'd all gone. He stayed in the hall for a few moments, muttering to himself; then he went outdoors and let the screen door bang.

"I thought, 'We're rid of him.' But we weren't.

"Well, I got out of the weapons-room in a hurry, and closed the door as you see it now. Then I heard Madge coming down the stairs. At least, I supposed it was Madge, and I know now it was.
She
went out on the porch. It couldn't have been thirty seconds later that Madge screamed. She screamed so horribly that I almost felt I knew, though I couldn't have known anything at all.